Excerpt from article by Prisma Health 

Anson Hawkins was a paramedic for nearly 30 years. He loved the job, but after all that time working with so many people who didn’t seem to be taking care of themselves, who came to the ER with the same treatable issues repeatedly, who seemed to be non-compliant and uninterested in change, he was burned out. 

“When I came in from the street, I had care fatigue,” he said. “I didn’t understand why people would call 911 with non-life-threatening things. My eyes weren’t opened to what people really go through, just trying to navigate the health system and get proper care, to how many barriers are blocking them.” 

After a year on the Community Paramedics team in the Upstate, he said, “I see it through another lens. I now appreciate people where they are.” 

Community Paramedics works primarily with patients who are uninsured or underinsured, who tend to use the emergency room for non-emergent troubles because they don’t have the connection to care they need. The paramedics explain basic health care processes, educate patients on their disease or illness, link them to insurance options and primary care providers, and get them on the right path to continued care. 

“There are so many social needs that don’t get met,” Anson said. “They may not have transportation or family to help take care of them. Food is more important than medicine when you’re hungry, so they spend what they have on a meal with nothing left for medications. As we knock down barriers and build a path to success, you can see you’ve made a difference – by the care and compassion you’re giving but also by a change in them. They feel empowered to be in control of their own health, ask questions because they’re educated about what’s going on. They know how to have a better outcome; they know how to improve the quality of their lives.” 

The difference is that “we are dealing with every piece of the person – mental, emotional, physical, social,” he said. “I met a 90-year-old woman who has to decide each day whether to eat or take her insulin. As a paramedic, my job was to fix the acute problem, fix the emergency. With Community Paramedics, we’re getting to the bottom of what is in the way of you taking your medicine. We’re finding the human cause, the real barriers.” 

Dalton Shull celebrated his 30th anniversary with EMS in January. He worked for a county 911 service for over 27 years and then joined Prisma Health’s Critical Care Transport team, and now is the newest member of the Community Paramedics team. 

“While I always enjoyed transport, I often found it difficult to not know the long-term outcome of our patients,” he said. “I have a love of caring for the elderly and medically fragile and for trying to improve their quality of life. When I saw the interactions of the Community Paramedics in the Upstate and learned of the successes of the program, I was very excited at the opportunity to serve.” 

Community paramedicine is a combination of clinical medical skills and social work, he said, “with a big dose of a passion for longer-term care.” He explained: “You need to be clinically competent to understand the short- and long-term effects of multiple disease processes, but also able to look at how living conditions affect both the physical and mental health of the patients and understand what resources we can call on to meet their needs.”   

The Community Paramedics team is in a unique position to see if patients are able and willing to manage their own care. “This opportunity benefits the hospital by reducing preventable readmissions, which allows us to free up the ERs, the inpatient beds and the ambulance service,” he said. 

“This is an opportunity to do more than put someone on a stretcher and move them to a hospital,” Dalton said. 

“We are able to learn why they aren’t taking their medicine. They may want to be in the hospital because at least they’ll get a meal. If we can provide education and find other resources for them for a more permanent situation, why wouldn’t we?” 

Anson agreed, adding, “The relationships and the trust you build with patients and practitioners, when … they see the positive impact on the patient, brings a measurable amount of joy. On the ambulance side, I never got to see the full circle. Now we see A1Cs change, blood pressure coming down, quality of life improving; now they have insurance. THAT is what feeds me. It’s a gratifying feeling, doing more than I ever did to impact people’s health.” 

Ken Whitten, director of EMS administration for Prisma Health, said that making the switch to the Community Paramedics team can be beneficial to the wellbeing of the providers themselves, as well as the patients they serve.  

“What I really like about this is that – while we focus on patient experience – this is a story about provider experiences,” he said. “This shows the power of these programs and the impact they make on providers. That is why I love it so much!” 

#PowerofRural Spotlight: South Carolina’s 2022 Pioneer Award 

Dr. Oscar Lovelace was given SCORH’s Pioneer Award at our annual conference in October. The Pioneer Award is given each year to a provider who, during a lengthy career, has contributed significantly to the delivery of primary health care in a rural environment. Dr. Lovelace, a family medicine physician in Prosperity, was honored for serving his community for more than three decades.

#PowerofRural Spotlight: South Carolina’s 2022 Award of Excellence

Dee Robinson, deputy director of the Tri-County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, won SCORH’s Award of Excellence at our conference in October. This is not an award that is presented every year. It is reserved for those individuals whose efforts have made a truly outstanding and notable contribution to health, health care, or a health care delivery system in rural South Carolina. Robinson was nominated for her persistent work to bring behavioral health to the forefront of our healthcare conversations, and to build partnerships that create a behavioral health safety net for the residents of Orangeburg, Calhoun, Bamberg and Barnwell counties.

#PowerofRural Spotlight: South Carolina’s 2022 Provider of the Year 

Allendale County Hospital won SCORH’s Rural Health Provider of the Year award at our Annual Rural Health Conference in October. This award is presented to a provider of rural health services where the health status of a rural community was significantly enhanced.  Allendale County Hospital is a 25-bed critical access hospital and one of the only remaining independent hospitals in the state.

#PowerofRural Spotlight: South Carolina’s 2022 Power of Rural Award

The Rural Resource Coalition received SCORH’s Power of Rural Award at our annual conference in October. This award is presented to a community-based project, program or initiative that has embodied the spirit of the “Power of Rural” by demonstrating positive attributes of rural South Carolina, including those that are outside of the health care services sector. The Rural Resource Coalition was nominated for shining a light on the needs of Black and Brown farmers in the state, and building inclusive and cross-sector partnerships to support them.

#PowerofRural Spotlight: 2022 Outstanding Community Health Project or Initiative Award

Tidelands Community Care Network received SCORH’s Outstanding Community Health Project or Initiative Award at our annual conference in October. This award recognizes an outstanding educational program or direct service that has positively impacted a community’s health services. TCCN was nominated for its positive impact on community health in Georgetown and surrounding communities.  The network is a public-private partnership created by Tidelands Health that serves many of the community’s most vulnerable citizens with complex conditions and needs, providing access to care, specialty services and care management.

#PowerofRural Spotlight: South Carolina’s Rural Practitioner of the Year

Dr. Trey Moore, a family medicine physician at Abbeville Area Medical Center, received SCORH’s Rural Practitioner of the Year Award at our annual conference last month. This award is presented to a rural primary health care practitioner whose service and community commitment has resulted in significant improvement of primary health care services. Dr. Moore’s coworkers nominated him for this award for his forethought and diligence in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic before it even appeared in South Carolina. By creating a “Fast Track” clinic to identify and treat COVID patients, his work is credited with saving many lives.

#PowerofRural Spotlight: SC’s Community Star is a mover and a shaker in Heath Springs

Zora Denson grew up with a father who was a textile worker at Springs Mill by day and a gardener in the evenings. She ate fresh foods, but didn’t know much about nutrition.

“I didn’t know sugar was a problem. I didn’t know salt was a problem,” she said. “Life has proven that without your health, you can’t do anything.”

Now that she knows the importance of a healthy lifestyle, she wants to share that knowledge with her whole community.

Denson has been named South Carolina’s 2022 Community Star by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH). NOSORH names a community star from each state as a way to celebrate National Rural Health Day each year.

Denson was nominated by Karen Nichols, executive director of the Upper Midlands Rural Health Network. Nichols calls Denson a “community champion,” a “connector,” a “go-getter” and a “humble servant to her community.”

Denson calls herself a “homegrown transplant” – she was born in Heath Springs, but lived in Detroit for 40 years of her adult life, where she was a teacher and worked in community development. She was widowed in 2012 and moved back to Heath Springs in 2018.

“I did not have a clue as to what I was going to do,” she said.

She started by attending a town council meeting. She was disappointed in the poor turnout from local residents and spoke to the mayor after the meeting. She offered to reach out to local churches, businesses and schools to encourage attendance.

She invited the student council from the local elementary school. The students came dressed in their best, and were recognized by town council members.

Next, Denson arranged for a business spotlight at each meeting that drew local employees and loyal customers.

Once she had improved the civic engagements of the community, she turned her sights to improving the health of the community. First up was a community health fair in 2019. She solicited a sponsorship from Healthy Blue and enlisted 50 vendors to offer everything from massages to eye exams.

She also organized a daily walking activity for residents to exercise and socialize, and in 2020 she spearheaded a group to take the FAN (Faith, Activity & Nutrition) course through the University of South Carolina, which enlists the faith community to encourage healthier lifestyle habits among their congregations. The FAN group in Heath Springs now includes 50 churches that meet one Saturday a month to walk, do chair aerobics, prepare healthy snacks and enjoy music together.

“I love when people feel the spark or get the juice,” she said.

Her volunteer work led to a staff position as the director of community relations for the Town of Heath Springs. That allowed her to coordinate with the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) for drive-through testing and vaccine locations during the pandemic. And because Heath Springs is in a food desert, she reached out to Food Lion to help provide food boxes and bottled water distribution stations.

More recently, when Dollar General opened in the town – providing the only grocery store within 10 miles – she approached the regional manager in the parking lot one day to press him to add fresh produce to the store.

“If you don’t say anything, nothing will be done,” she said. “In small-town America, we can effect change because we are smaller. We’re small enough to be familiar. We’re small enough to be able to pull in these entities.

“The power is in making sure we don’t lose it.”

#PowerofRural Spotlight: Digital Economy Ecosystems

Across South Carolina, there is a growing network of “digital economy ecosystems” that are transforming rural communities into thriving centers of tech jobs and innovation.

A digital economy ecosystem features technical education, job training, and community planning to foster technology-based entrepreneurship and remote work opportunities in these rural communities.

“A successful digital economy ecosystem increases digital literacy, creates quality jobs and builds wealth in the local community,” said Paola Gutierrez, the SC Office of Rural Health’s lead strategist for this project. “We see this happening in five communities already – Williamsburg, Barnwell, Orangeburg, Newberry and Greenwood counties — and we have a vision for a network that connects every corner of the state.”

In each community, the project begins with training sessions that provide an overview of broadband technology and its applications to rural community leaders. Community stakeholders then work with the SC Rural Innovation Network (SCRIN) to develop a rural innovation roadmap that reflects the communities’ assets, competitive advantages and goals for a digital economy. The roadmap may include education, job training and leadership training in partnership with local libraries, public school systems, technical colleges, and four-year universities.

“A DEE is an interconnected system of people, programs, and structures working together to make it possible for technology-based entrepreneurs, businesses, and workers to thrive,” said Kim Bowman, founder and CEO of SCRIN. “Every community kickstarts DEE revitalization from a different starting point, but we’ve seen how the process can encourage community buy-in, attract investors, and build momentum for a new way of life.”

Barnwell and Williamsburg counties were the first two communities to embark on a two-year DEE planning and implementation project in 2020, with funding secured by the SC Office of Rural Health (SCORH) through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The DEE process has resulted in new co-working spaces, summer tech institutes for middle and high school students, a program for schools to showcase STEM programs to the business and manufacturing communities, a downtown farmer’s market, new courses in drone technology and website design at Williamsburg Technical College, and expanded telehealth availability.

Additionally, Barnwell recently partnered with USC Salkehatchie to secure USDA funding to develop the Propel Business Lab, a 12-week business accelerator with 20-person cohorts in Barnwell and Allendale Counties. The program will culminate in a pitch competition with startup funding for participants. And Williamsburg’s DEE and the Digital Lane are developing an agribusiness program to introduce agricultural technology and tools, land management, access to new markets, and farm-to-table opportunities.

With a second round of USDA funding in 2021, Orangeburg was selected to embark on the DEE process, and recently completed its roadmap. A third funding award from USDA this month allows Newberry and Greenwood counties to begin the process.

“South Carolina’s growing network of DEE communities has the potential to close the rural-urban divide by creating a workforce with modern skills and a talent pipeline to follow,” Bowman said.

She said these shifts toward innovation and digital workforce development will entice people to remain in or return to their rural hometowns, where they will enjoy work/life amenities like co-working spaces, innovation centers, vibrant Main Streets, and entrepreneurial support.

Through this evolution, she sees the power of rural at work, changing the image of rural communities.

“To me, the power of rural is a mindset, a belief that our rural communities can transform their energies, abilities, and outcomes by building thriving digital economies,” Bowman said. “By working together to achieve this much-needed shift, we open more doors to more possibilities and improve every citizen’s health, happiness, and well-being along the way.”

#PowerofRural Spotlight: Rural Art Competition Winners

Throughout the Power of Rural spotlight series, we’ve asked our subjects what “the power of rural” means to them. The answers have varied greatly, but mostly have been about intangible qualities – the sense of pride, the spirit of unity, the comfort of traditions, the perseverance in the face of challenges. 

But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So we turn our spotlight this week to the artists of the Palmetto State who strive to capture “the power of rural” in their artwork. The SC Office of Rural Health hosts an annual rural art contest. This year’s first-, second- and third-place winners captured the beauty, history and ordinary splendor of rural South Carolina.  

Upstate photographer Jamie Baxley won first place for “The Road Less Traveled.” The panel of judges noted that it was “masterfully composed and captures many facets of rural South Carolina.” 

“As a photographer, I often find myself winding down a backroad in a rural community in search of picturesque landscapes,” Baxley said. “These close-knit communities tend to have less traffic and an abundance of undeveloped land and farms which allow me to capture the essence of small-town life.” 

The second-place award went to “Horse-drawn Funeral Hearse in Lone Star, South Carolina (Circa 1880),” a photograph by James Bradford, MD. Bradford is a former board chair at the SC Office of Rural Health, and donated his cash prize back to our programs.  

Bradford was traveling the backroads from Columbia to Charleston on Highway 267 in January when he came upon this scene just outside of Lone Star and captured it with his camera.   

“The gentlemen were awaiting the funeral home hearse from Vance, SC, to transfer the coffin to their hearse for transportation to the gravesite for the final burial,” he said. 

The judges praised Bradford for capturing “a unique moment in history. We selected this because of the unique statement it makes about the present day as we cope with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in our rural communities. The paved road informs us that this is a contemporary image capturing a somber moment in a country setting. Very compelling.” 

The third-place award was given to Pat Konicki for her painting “Forgotten.” The judges praised Pat’s “technical mastery of the painting and composition. The motif speaks to a uniquely rural combination of elements (country home in the background, weathered shed and run-down farm truck). Very finely executed.” 

Konicki works in watercolor and colored pencil to offer a unique, detailed study of often-forgotten treasures found in the rural areas of North and South Carolina. Her challenge, she says, is to see beyond the distraction of the decayed, abandoned or dismissed and capture its splendor. Some of her subjects are quite ordinary, others less so.  

“Rural living is rooted in history as a means of self-sufficiency. That attachment to the landscape provides a feeling of belonging and sense of purpose,” she said. “It is vital to ensure the preservation of the physical and cultural assets of rural communities.  My objective is to express and enhance the beauty of that history, regardless of the condition.” 

 Baxley said that the “power of rural” is a sense of community pride and a slower pace of life that are easy to overlook.  

“The residents in these rural communities are some of the absolute friendliest people who are willing to share their personal stories and experiences with you,” she said. “Sense of community pride, to me, is the most powerful aspect of living and visiting rural communities. I strive to capture moments in my photographs that evoke an emotional response from the viewer and … challenge them to take a drive down a backroad and see the intriguing communities that they have been passing by.” 

#PowerofRural Spotlight: Preserving the Heart of a Community 

Rory Dowling has been fascinated by the old Mt. Zion Institute campus for most of his life. He heard his late grandparents and other relatives reminisce about their years spent inside the classrooms. And he watched them and other residents of Winnsboro organize to preserve the historic buildings after the school closed in 1991.  

“I’ve followed this building’s course since I’ve been coming for Thanksgiving dinner,” said Dowling, who is now principal at 1st & Main Development, a Durham, NC-based real estate development and consulting firm focused on enriching communities through downtown revitalization. 

According to the SC Department of Archives and History, the school was built in 1937 by the Public Works Administration and designed by prominent Columbia architect James B. Urquhart. The property also includes a wood frame Victorian house built in the 1880s that served as a teacherage, and a brick one-story cafeteria, built between 1950 and 1955.  

When the town began to talk of demolition in 2017, Dowling and Fairfield County Administrator Jason Taylor worked on a plan to preserve and renovate the building using a combination of federal, state and historic tax credits available for this type of historic revitalization work. Despite some political tensions in the community and competing ideas for the property, plans were ultimately developed to renovate the building and use it as a new county government complex. 

The property was listed in the National Register in September 2019, and construction began in February 2020. Today, more than 100 county employees and sheriff’s deputies are moving into office spaces that were once classrooms. Wooden floors, tall windows and wide hallways have been preserved. 

The school auditorium now serves as council chambers, with the stage serving as a dais for council members, and rows of original wooden seats carefully restored for audience members. 

The original gymnasium still features all-brick walls, steel tresses, a gleaming hardwood floor, tall windows and an original (albeit nonfunctioning) scoreboard. The space is ready for county recreation programs such as basketball leagues, volleyball leagues and fitness classes. 

The one-story cafeteria building has been renovated into space for the county’s early childhood program. Just in front of the building, a Martin Luther King, Jr., statue and fountain are being installed, and there is space for a playground beside the building. 

The old teacherage has been carefully restored and will serve as a cultural and heritage museum with a focus on African American history. 

On a recent visit to the building, which was getting some final touches as county employees continued to move in, Dowling reflected on the project, which combined his professional interest in historic preservation and a family connection to the community. Check out this video to hear his thoughts on the “power of rural” at work in this project. 

#PowerofRural Spotlight: Ag + Art Tour 

Every weekend in May and June, Will Culler watches people spend their weekends on farms across South Carolina. They come to see how local farms operate and teach their kids where their food comes from. They watch artisans at work and listen to live music. They enjoy craft beer and shop for fresh flowers and produce.  

Culler is the executive director of the South Carolina Ag + Art Tour, an annual self-guided tour of local farms and markets across the state. He said the event helps celebrate the contributions of South Carolina’s rural communities, and preserve their beauty and history. 

“In South Carolina, the rural lifestyle is really what we’re all about,” Culler said. “Most people don’t realize the rural areas drive so much of our state. The social, the economic, the environmental – they’re all interconnected, and you need all three to work.” 

The South Carolina Ag + Art Tour was born in 2012, when both the York County Arts Council was planning an arts tour, and the Clemson Extension office wanted to launch an agriculture tour. They joined forces to create the first Ag + Art Tour in York County. Over the past 10 years, the event has grown to include as many as 15 counties across the state, and has welcomed more than 45,000 visitors, making it the largest free farm and art tour in the nation. 

Culler said that agri-tourism is the fastest-growing sector of tourism, and sites that celebrate the heritage and history of rural communities are a driving force behind that growth. Some of the farms included in the tour are centennial farms that have been operated by the same family for more than a century. One farm is a bicentennial farm, operated by the same family for more than 200 years.  

Culler would like to see the tour continue expanding in the coming years to touch more counties and include more farms, markets and artisans.  

“I hope we can keep talking about rural areas in 20 years as we grow,” he said. “The power of rural is reconnecting. It’s social and economic growth. It’s connecting with the environment. It’s sharing your experiences.” 

**** 

This year’s South Carolina Ag + Art Tour includes 120 sites in 10 counties over six weekends in May and June. Remaining dates and counties include: 

June 4-5: Charleston, Kershaw and eastern York counties 

June 11-12: Lexington, Newberry, Richland and western York counties 

June 18-19:  Fairfield County 

June 25-26: Chester County 

Visit agandarttour.com for a list of participating farms and markets in each county. 

Photo courtesy of SC Ag+ Art Tour

#PowerofRural Spotlight: Carolina Cup 

On April 2, the Carolina Cup Races, presented by Mullikin Law, will not only be the 87th running of this steeplechase horse race, but it will turn the eyes of the world toward the quaint town of Camden and the rural beauty of Kershaw County.  

The annual event draws 30,000 brightly attired fans, as well as horses and their jockeys and owners, from across the world to the Springdale Race Course.  

“We’re putting Camden on the map internationally,” said Toby Edwards, executive director of the 2022 Carolina Cup Races. “Camden has built itself a brand name that has worldwide presence.” 

But Edwards said that the event also is a beloved part of the community culture. Local residents and non-profit organizations provide volunteer power. Local and state law enforcement agencies work the event. Local shops, restaurants, hotels and air strips open their arms to visitors for the weekend. 

“I couldn’t run the event without the community,” Edwards said. “I do think of it as an event run by the community, for the community.” 

This tradition was established and cemented by Marion duPont Scott, who acquired the Springdale Race Course and adjacent acreage in 1953 from Mrs. Ambrose Clark of Aiken. Mrs. Scott has been hailed by many as “The First Lady of American Steeplechasing.” When she died in 1983, she gifted the Springdale race course and adjacent properties to the State of South Carolina. It is managed by the Carolina Crown Racing Association. 

Edwards credits Scott for her forward thinking in preserving the property’s natural beauty from eventual development, and for establishing a way for the event to uplift the community. Any proceeds from the event are donated to the Health Resource District of Kershaw County to provide additional health services for the uninsured and underinsured citizens of Kershaw County. 

“She wanted to make sure there were funds for people who couldn’t cover their costs,” Edwards said. 

For Edwards, the “power of rural” lies in both the beautiful setting of the Springdale Race Course and the time-honored tradition of the Carolina Cup.  

“We have very little permanent infrastructure,” he said. “WE create the day, and hope we’ve created an atmosphere where people can come out with family and friends to enjoy the great outdoors with a cocktail in their hand.” 

Photo Credit- Carolina Cup/ William Quarles

#PowerofRural Spotlight: Tidelands Health is bolstered by community support during COVID-19 pandemic 

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the leadership team at Tidelands Health approached it “with our normal disaster preparedness mindset,” said Chief Operating Officer Gayle Resetar.  

Of course, this pandemic turned out to be anything bur “normal,” as cases spikes and subsided, messaging from national leadership changed, hospital staff was enlisted for the public health work of testing and vaccinating, and pandemic response changed every aspect of life as we know it over the past two years. 

The one thing that remained constant at Tidelands Health, though, was a commitment to being transparent with the communities of Georgetown and Horry counties,  and sharing a consistent message both inside and outside their walls.  

As the healthcare system shared information with their community and asked them to make sacrifices when it came to visiting loved ones or following COVID protocols, they were pleasantly surprised by the positive mindset they saw in return. 

“The response wasn’t ‘This is terribly unfair and I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ The response was ‘How can we make the best of this?’” Resetar said. “The community really began to rally around the idea that we’re doing the best we can with the information we have today.” 

Over the course of the past two years, there have been cookies delivered to nurses. There was a group of volunteers who made masks from donated new t-shirts when it seemed N95 and surgical masks might be in short supply. There were businesses that put signs in their windows and kids who drew in sidewalk chalk to say “Thank You To Our Helpers.” There were parking lot prayer vigils. There were families who waited with balloons and signs watching a hospital room window for news of a birth, rather than fighting the limited visitation policies. 

“Rather than creating panic in the community, it became a story of ‘we want to be part of the solution,’” Resetar said. “It helped the staff so much to see they were being supported in the community.” 

When it came time to organize testing and vaccine sites, and to share information with the community, the Tidelands staff became ambassadors for those efforts. In a small community, the healthcare system is often one of the largest employers, so healthcare workers are an important part of the education efforts, as they are a trusted source of information among friends and neighbors. 

“It has to relate to how connected we are in the community,” Resetar said. “Even our leadership staff, we live here. We’re in the neighborhood.” 

And while large urban areas might have seven or eight hospitals to choose from, in small communities, there is only one. To Resetar, the “power of rural” lies in the privilege and responsibility of being that singular trusted source for healthcare and information for your neighbors.   

“Our sense of how we feel personally responsible for our community is part of that rural mindset,” she said. “We feel a responsibility to take care of our community.” 

Photo provided by Tidelands Health

Dr. Neal Shealy spent 42 years as a rural physician before he retired on Jan. 31. And while he has traveled extensively on international medical mission trips, he wouldn’t have spent his career anywhere else.

“Medical school is not an easy road to go down,” said Shealy, who got his medical degree at the Medical University of South Carolina in 1979. “If I put that time and effort and sweat into it, I wanted to use those tools in a community that needed it. It never appealed to me to go to an urban area where you may be duplicating services and competing for patients.”

Shealy began his career at a rural practice in Crossnore, NC. But the Leesville native returned to South Carolina in 1991 to help open the Harrison Peeples Health Care Center in Varnville and serve as its Medical Director. Shealy and Harold “Buck” Harvey, a physician assistant at the practice, received the Pioneer Award from the South Carolina Office of Rural Health in 2017 for more than seven combined decades of dedicated work in Hampton County.

Over the course of his career, Shealy also introduced hundreds of medical students – perhaps more than a thousand – to the life of a rural practitioner. During rotations at Harrison Peeples (now owned by Beaufort Memorial), he would take them hunting and fishing, boasting of the slower pace in a small town. 

“We like to expose students to the quality of life in a rural community,” he said. “You can practice good medicine – you don’t learn it and forget it. And you get to know your patients in the office and in the community.”

He showed them that rural doctors provide a full spectrum of medical service, from childbirth to end-of-life care, but they don’t work in isolation. They can find the support of specialists through telehealth, visiting clinics and partnerships with other providers. He made sure they learned about loan repayment programs available to medical professionals who work in underserved areas.

Shealy said the “power of rural” is demonstrated through the continuity of care he is able to provide, and a collaborative spirit within the office.

“You earn some credibility. You walk with your patients through issues or crises. You can have discussions and people listen,” Shealy said. “The teamwork concept is also important. In more urban areas and the med school setting, there’s a pecking order, a hierarchy. We tried not to have that in our office.”

During the pandemic, many seniors in rural areas were isolated from their loved ones more than usual, and struggled more than ever to access healthcare in a safe, convenient way.  

Palmetto Care Connections, Rural LISC and the SC Department on Aging stepped in to close the digital divide and help those seniors connect to both their doctors and their families.  

Over the past year, 100 seniors living in Allendale, Barnwell, Clarendon, Lower Richland and Williamsburg received free tablets, free or discounted internet access, and digital literacy lessons. Digital navigators taught the seniors how to operate the tablet, research health information on the internet, identify cyber scams, and make telehealth calls. 

“While PCC’s focus has traditionally been on serving rural healthcare providers with telehealth, broadband and technology resources, we have learned that patients need help in connecting to their health care providers,” said Kathy Schwarting, PCC’s Chief Executive Officer. “Residents of rural areas not only need internet access, they need access that is affordable and they need a device and knowledge to connect to resources for a better quality of life.” 

As a result of the pilot program, the number of seniors with internet access doubled, and the participants who used telehealth increased from 13 percent to 100 percent. The program also helped the seniors use technology to connect with family and friends during the pandemic when many of them were even more isolated than usual. They learned how to create and use an email account, video chat with family and friends, and use apps to play games and make social connections. 

Because the program was so successful, PCC has been able to leverage additional funding to expand the program and make it more inclusive. Now known as Palmetto Care Connections’ Palmetto Connect Digital Inclusion Solutions, the program includes the following initiatives: 

– Digital Inclusion for Seniors 

– Community Development Digital Inclusion: hands-on digital training to assist rural residents in developing digital life skills, assisting school-aged loved ones with virtual education, and searching and applying for jobs. 

– Digital Refurbishment: will utilize high school and technical students to upgrade and refurbish used digital devices that can be redeployed to residents of rural and underserved communities who can benefit from these refurbished devices. 

“What we have learned from the pilot project is that seniors living in rural areas are thirsty for digital knowledge. Especially in these pandemic times, seniors want to stay connected to family and friends, their doctors and the outside world. Digital training and internet access give them that opportunity,” Schwarting said.  

“The enthusiasm of the seniors who completed the training was contagious! It has inspired us to want to spread this program throughout the state. That’s the power of rural – helping people improve their lives and being inspired by their gratitude.” 

*Photo provided by Palmetto Care Connections